


Doin' Time

by hedyrome



Series: I Fall to Pieces (When I'm With You) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Female Character, Cliche, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Spy OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-09 11:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedyrome/pseuds/hedyrome
Summary: Natalia Hayes doesn't believe that treason and spying are fun, glamorous, or even very interesting. Mostly it's just tiring to change her identity every few months and bounce around from place to place, desperate for a mission to spice up her otherwise deathly boring life. Her wish is granted when she's assigned to capture the infamous Winter Soldier and turn him over to the U.S. government. In order to do that, however, she must earn his trust... which turns out to be more difficult (and affecting) than she originally thought.(I'm really bad at writing summaries sorry!)





	1. Prologue

Being a spy isn’t nearly as fun as Hollywood would have you believe. I don’t have James Bond’s advanced tech and colorful history of beautiful women tripping over themselves to sleep with me (and then kill me, but that’s beside the point), and the closest thing I have to a group of runway-ready killer female spies straight out of Charlie’s Angels is the occasional encounter in the break room with my colleague, Elina, who only interacts with me to accost me about my love life and attempt to get me to sign up for Tinder. Being a spy isn’t glamorous, and in all honesty, it’s kind of boring. My most cutting-edge pieces of equipment are the silencer and extended magazine on my gun, and my enemies are typically businessmen and arms dealers in their mid-thirties. 

When I was first approached by a suspicious looking man in a black trench coat who arrived at the small bookstore where I worked with an offer to become a spy, I was simply a woman on the run from the government for treason. You try to stage one revolution and suddenly you’re the bad guy, you know, girly things. The man, who I soon learned was named Davis Edwards, was an employee of a mysterious organization who came to me with a proposition from his enigmatic employer. The entire conversation was extremely cliché.

“You’re a very difficult woman to find, Ms. Williams, or should I call you Ms. Hayes?”

“Williams is fine. I suppose you work for the government?

“To some extent, yes, I work for a government.”

I let out a heavy sigh, taking note of the fact that he didn’t admit to working for the American government and instead dodged my question. “I knew you all would catch up to me someday. How many years am I looking at?”

“Life in a maximum-security prison, or even the death penalty, unless you hear out my proposition.”

This caught my attention. I stopped sorting books and looked over my fake eyeglasses at him. “And if I don’t hear out this ‘proposition’ of yours, you’ll do what? Turn me in?”  
The man gave a small, disingenuous chuckle. “Of course not. My association values discretion just as much as you do, but aren’t you tired of running? Has the inevitability of your capture not plagued you?”

I went quiet. I knew that someone would find me eventually, or that someone would watch an episode of America’s Most Wanted and turn me in. The man took my silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“Do you know what your parents did as a job?”

The seemingly random question caught me off guard. “Of… of course I do. My mother was a nurse, and my father was a businessman.”

“Let me guess, they were gone most of the time? They never talked about their past? Only the occasional story from their childhood?”

Now I was getting angry. “Why the questions? Why is the way my parents raised me so important to you, hm?”

“Because your parents were not who you think they were. They worked with me, as undercover agents.”

“Liar!” I exclaimed, slamming my hands on my desk and standing up to get in the man’s face. “My parents were regular people who worked regular jobs!”

“Then how do you explain this?” The man reached into the inside pocket of his trench coat and pulled out two manila folders. “These are your parents’ files.”

Cautiously, I opened the folders. There my parents were, on sheets of paper with all their information on it. Fingerprints, blood types, dates of birth, social security numbers, security clearance levels, missions completed. Any details that a cryptic spy cooperation would need was in those folders. The small pictures in the top folder were of them, but much younger. They looked stoic, the opposite of the constantly smiling faces I saw all throughout my youth.

Suddenly, it all clicked. The self-defense lessons they insisted I took, our constant moving, the large collection of wigs, clothing, and other accessories stashed away in their closet, the countless “business trips” overseas and far away from home, the men in clean black suits that always knocked on our front door, speaking quietly to my parents. Even their deaths were suspicious. The police told my aunt that they had died in a shooting when I was ten years old… that had never been investigated.

“What do you want?” I said bluntly, keeping my face stone cold.

“I want you to work with us.”

That fateful encounter was two years ago. Now I spend my days eagerly awaiting missions and being disappointed when I don’t get assigned any. Every day I have to go to the heavily-guarded underground bunker and check in. Even if I don’t have anything to do, I’m still required to show up, so I train… and train… and train. Sometimes I’ll take a few hours off to help our overworked initiates file paperwork and type up mission reports, but aside from the occasional excitement of a rare sparring partner, I’m bored out of my mind, but all of that changed when I received a summons from Edwards. I didn’t bother getting my hopes up, because it was probably a reprimand for leaving my coffee grounds in the sink this morning.

“Ah, good to see you again, Ms. Williams.” He greeted, abnormally cheery.

“It’s Ms. Jones now, but it’s good to see you too.”

“I suspect you’ve been quite tired of sitting around all day doing nothing, since you’ve been all doom and gloom lately.”

He was acting suspiciously happy, and in all honesty, I didn’t really have the time, or patience for it. “No offense, Mr. Edwards, but can we please skip the small talk?”

“I was getting to that, before I was so rudely interrupted.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“So, as I was saying. Your moping around all day long is bringing down morale, and I can see why. I’ve only been in the room with you for five minutes and even I’m starting to feel sad. So, instead of having you continue to bring everyone else down, I’ve decided to assign you to a mission.”

My eyebrows shot up. I hadn’t had a mission in three months. “Okay, what is it?” I said, with obvious eagerness.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the assassination of the king of Wakanda..”

“Of course, it’s been all over the news.”

“Then I’m sure you’ve heard about the culprit of said assassination.”

My face dropped. “Listen, Mr. Edwards, if you’re asking me to kill the Winter Soldier- “

“No, of course not. This is simply a capture and release mission. The F.B.I is desperate, and they’re willing to do anything to catch him. Including hiring us.”

“Listen, as great as a mission sounds, I’m wanted by the U.S. government. Remember the whole treason thing?”

“The government has agreed to drop all charges in exchange for the target. Here’s his file, and good luck, Ms. Jones.”

At the time, I figured it shouldn’t be too difficult to catch the Winter Soldier. I had taken down kingpins of the black-market firearm and drug trade. One man from the 1940s couldn’t be too difficult, but here’s the thing about my line of work: you never assume anything is going to be easy, because it’ll come back and pump you full of bullets. Unfortunately, the difficulty of my mission to the capture and delivery of the Winter Soldier to the American government proved to be much more of a challenge than I expected.


	2. One for the Money

Sometimes, I wish I worked a nine to five office job and went home to my perfect little nuclear family. Right now happens to be one of those times. Agents don’t get desks, even though we’re expected to show up every day bright and early and every day leave late in the night. I guess the Man in Charge didn’t think that we needed desks, that we’d all be out abroad killing villains and preventing them from causing any further damage. Occasionally I wonder if he has the same James Bond-esque Hollywood fantasy that I did when I first started out as an initiate, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Poor design choices and exaggerated, glamorized versions of agents’ true jobs aside, the only place for anyone who wasn’t in the intel division or an initiate stuck with the desk duty of filing papers and making copies upon copies of reports to get work done was the break room. Comprised of a refrigerator, a coffee machine (the closest thing to a significant other that I have), a microwave, a sink, a few overhead cabinets, and about five tables, the room was always colder than the rest of the facility, and constantly smelled like cleaner. One Christmas, one woman tried to decorate the place with multicolored holiday lights, multiple smelling candles, and a small Christmas tree. As one of the only people to visit the room daily, I was asked for my input. I told her they were lovely, conveniently leaving out the part about me being Jewish. I really did enjoy the decorations and was a little disappointed when the woman who decorated was transferred to another facility in Paris. Despite the almost oppressive drabness of the room, it was the only place I could get any work done for the time being.

As soon as I sat down with my mug of my magical productivity serum (otherwise known as coffee) and began to reach for the uncharacteristically thin report on the infamous Winter Soldier, Elina strode into the room with a dramatic declaration of her return.

“I’m back! I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me but think again!”

“Hey, Elina.”

“What, not excited to see your best friend?”

“No, it’s not that, I just have to look over a file for my mission.”

“Me too! I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

That made me quietly laugh. Elina was the smartest person I had ever met, and an amazing agent, but outside of her stone-cold façade that she puts on during missions, she was filled with such energy it still amazes me that she hasn’t literally started bouncing off the walls. “Well, Elina, if you’re just dying to know,” I said teasingly, “I’m the person who’s going to take down the Winter Soldier.”

Elina’s smile faltered. “Oh… well…”

“What is it?”

“Well… that mission has a codename.”

“Most missions do.”

“No, it has an unofficial codename.”

“And what would that be?”

“Operation death warrant.”

“You’re screwing with me,” I said, even though I knew that she would never lie to me.

“I wish I was. Do you remember Christopher? Or Mark? Or Bryan? They got the same mission as you. It’s pretty much accepted around here that anyone assigned to capture the Winter Soldier is just a meat shield. Expendable bodies so we can tell the government that at least we tried and still rake in money. I’m so sorry, Jones.”

The news hit me like a .44 caliber bullet to the chest. This organization that I had slaved away for, risked my life for, wasted my life for… just saw me as a cash grab. I quickly snapped out of my reverie. In my line of work, you don’t have the luxury of emotions. Happiness makes you unobservant, sadness makes you weak, and anger makes you restless. Betrayal is the name of the game in this profession, and I suppose it was on me for expecting anything different from my own workplace. “Thank you, Elina.”

“You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you Jones?”

“Haven’t I done that already?” I said bitterly.

“Listen, I’m sure Edwards would be okay if you declined the mis- “

“No. No. I signed up for this when I joined this organization. If I die, I die. Nobody knows who I am, anyway. Not in the outside world, or hell even here.” I stood up, my voice growing louder to match that of my friend’s.

“I know who you are, Jones!” Elina looked close to tears now. “You’re the only person here who actually cares about me! You don’t talk behind my back or condescend me just because I don’t ‘act smart’ like everyone else does. You’re the only person I’ve ever gotten close to. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’m sorry, Elina. I have to do this mission.” It broke my heart to say it, but those words were the only things that found their way out of my mouth. 

“I understand,” she said quietly. She looked up at me, eyes full of tears but also admiration. “Nobody else would do what you’re doing knowing full well that they’re in danger. Not even me. Just promise me one thing, Jones.”

“Anything.”

“If you ever know that you’re heading into danger that could get you killed, don’t charge in like I know you’d want to do. Promise me that you’ll put your pride and your stubbornness to the side and walk away. Sometimes it’s okay to be selfish, to not throw self-preservation out the window like you always do. It’s okay to save your own life. The organization will understand.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Good. Now let me get out of here so you can be as prepared as possible to do what you do best.” She gave me one last bone-crushing hug and turned to walk away.

“I’ll see you later, Elina.”

“See you, Jones.”

As she walked out of the door and I returned to the uncomfortable metal chair I was sitting in, I took a deep breath and took a sip of my now cold coffee, wincing at the unpleasant taste. I slowly opened the folder that reminded me so much like the ones I opened two years ago. The information on the Winter Soldier was surprisingly sparse, considering most targets can’t take a breath without the intel staff recording it and shoving it into a novel sized folder. There wasn’t even a picture of the man’s full face, just eyes and what seemed to be a muzzle. There was nothing that was helpful to me. No blood type, identifiable traits, last seen location, not even a date of birth. Something did, however, catch my eye. A small, easy to miss note at the end of the three-page file read “(Mind) controlled by HYDRA. Cause of assassination.”

I took a deep breath and closed the file. This poor man wasn’t even coherent enough to make conscious decisions, and I was expected to risk my life to turn him over to a government that would almost indefinitely sentence him to death. I closed my eyes and considered not only this new information, but the betrayal of the people I had put my trust in. It was at that moment that I opened my eyes and came to a decision on what I must do: I had to find this Winter Soldier and warn him about what’s to come, but most importantly, I had to do what had been done to me, and betray the closest thing to a family I had since the death of my parents.


	3. Femme Fatale, Always on the Run

Being on the run from one of the most powerful governments in the world and being an international spy can equip you with a plethora of extremely useful skills. It teaches you priorities, accents, makeup, but most importantly, it teaches you how to be on the run and stay on the downlow about it. As soon as my day at the facility ended, I rushed to the nearest public pool and chucked my phone into itl, along with my earpiece, radio, and laptop. Anything that could be used to trace me slowly sunk to the bottom of the deserted swimming pool. It was almost liberating, being free of the phone that weighed heavily in my pocket, or the earpiece that was constantly ringing with the voices of the people who were willing to send me into a death trap without a second thought. Free from the organization, I smiled a real, genuine smile. Something that physically hurt to do, as I came to the sudden realization that I hadn’t done more than a slight upturn of my lips in years. With all ties to the anchor that was slowly sinking me down to the bottom of the swimming pool abandoned, I left, driving leisurely to my apartment complex.

The address that the organization has in my file isn’t my actual address, because I knew that they’d have the place bugged just in case I had the plan to do exactly what I’m doing right now. Instead, I lived in a dingy apartment across the street from the bodega where I buy my dinner every night. The elevator was forever out of order, and the elderly woman down the hall says it’s been like that since she moved in in the 1960s. Normally the walk up and down five flights of stairs after an already tiring day would be enough for me to curse the very people who built this crumbling relic of a bygone era, but tonight it felt as though I was floating on a cloud. As I was jamming the rusty key into the doorknob and wiggling it around a bit to make it unlock, the elderly woman greeted me with a smile.

“Why, don’t you look happy today!”

“Oh, I finally got a promotion at my job.”

“Congratulations!” After her words of encouragement, she hobbled down the hallway, beginning to take the treacherous trail that was the staircase.  
I stepped into my apartment and took a deep breath of the perfume-scented room. The smell was terrible without actual human intervention, so I took it upon myself to douse the place in perfume every morning. 

My apartment was relatively sparse. Most of my disguises were kept in three large trunks, haphazardly stacked on top of each other like a dangerous game of Jenga. I had a couch, a tv, a small dresser containing the limited collection of outfits I wore regularly, a bathroom stocked with toiletries (all in prepackaged bags, of course), and an inflatable mattress that I slept on when I wasn’t passed out on the couch. My kitchen was unimpressive as well, with a fridge and cabinets containing only the essentials in case I didn’t get to the bodega early enough. After my small moment of recollection, I began quickly packing my things. The trunks went first. I carried the unstable trio down the rickety fire escape in pitch black darkness, and when I arrived at my trunk, slightly out of breath, I unceremoniously shoved them in. Everything else was easy. The air mattress could be deflated and rolled up, my toiletries were always prepared for a last-minute mission, or in this case, a quick getaway. My clothes fit easily into a small suitcase, which I packed a few items of food in. I shoved the remaining food and bottles of water into a backpack I had abandoned in my closet. Finally, I flipped my couch over and ripped open the small pocket I had carved into it. In the pocket, I kept wads of cash. Half of my paychecks went to multiple debit cards under every name but my own that I had yet to tell the organization about, and the other half I kept in cash. With two years’ worth of half paychecks and who knows how much money on all my cards, I was ready to abandon everything I had ever known. With one last look at my barren apartment, I snuck out of the window into the inky darkness of the night. 

Once I was securely in my car, I used my burner phone to schedule a flight to Berlin, Germany, one of the few countries not at the mercy of the deathly tight grip of the organization. The drive from my home of Brooklyn to the Newark Airport was only about forty minutes, and my flight wasn’t for five hours, so just to be on the safe side, I had my things mailed to a friend’s address in Berlin, with a letter explaining that I needed her help. She had abandoned the organization about a year ago and entrusted me with her location. “For when you do the same,” she had told me. At the time I was taken aback by the implication that I would ever give up the safety and community that I had longed for since I was a child, but now looking back on it, she was right after all. 

The time that I had arrived at the airport, gone through security, and gotten on the plane destined for Berlin had flown by. It was only when the plane had taken off that I reflected on what I was doing. My immunity from the American government was only insured because of my employers, and since I abandoned them… not only would that make me a target in the eyes of the most far reaching, deadly, and powerful spy organization in the world, but also an enemy of my own country. I shook my head. It’s way too late for regrets now. I put my head against the plane’s window, and slowly drifted off to sleep with visions of my potential, new future.


	4. What Only the Girls Know

When you’re on the run, there isn’t a single moment of relaxation available to you. You must be constantly alert, always looking over your shoulder. Anyone else would call it paranoia, but being paranoid is the name of the game, paranoia is what keeps you alive. That is unfortunately the case for me. Even though I had moved in with my old friend, Elizabeth, I still had to keep my head on the swivel. Most of the time I just stayed indoors, watching television, reading, cleaning, or attempting to cook a real meal for the first time in my twenty-five years of living. Elizabeth constantly pestered me with passive aggressive comments about my secluded, hermit lifestyle, but I knew that she only wanted the best for me. Three weeks into my stay with her, she came to the decision that enough was enough, and I had to get out of the house eventually. I was lying on the couch, reading a beaten, yellowed copy of Romeo and Juliet, when Elizabeth abruptly stood up from her position on a chair tucked away in a corner, where she had been watching me for the past five minutes.

“I can’t do this anymore, Nat.”

Her slightly abrasive tone caught me off guard, causing me to close my book and look up at her. “What do you mean?

“This!” She gestured wildly at me. “I really appreciate your help with housework and dinner, but I can’t in good conscious let you waste away in the dark all day long. You need to get out.”

“Eliz- “I began, only to be interrupted by a slightly calmer Elizabeth, who seemed relieved to get what had obviously been plaguing her since I moved in.  
“I’m not telling you to find your own place, you don’t even have to get a job. I just can’t allow you to waste your life. Take baby steps. I know that you aren’t in a good mindset and that you need time to adjust to life away from the organization, I was the same exact way those first few months on the run. Just go out to a café. I always had lunch at this place down the road, you can’t miss it.”

“You know, you’re really fitting the classic ‘concerned friend’ archetype right now,” I said with a small laugh.

Elizabeth looked unimpressed. “I’m being serious, Natalia.”

“Wrong time for a joke, sorry.”

An awkward silence filled the room. Finally, Elizabeth spoke. “So, are you going to take me up on that offer?”

I paused for a moment. “Yeah, I think I will.”

“Perfect! We can go out right now! Just… be sure to change out of your pajamas.”

The walk to the café was just as short as Elizabeth said it was. After ordering for the both of us, we took our seats outside, given that the inside was at maximum capacity. 

“So, what did you get me?”

“You’ll see.”

“That’s very cryptic. It’s not snails or something, right?”

“Snails are a French delicacy, not a German one. All you need to know right now is that it tastes good, and you’ll like it a lot.”

“If you say so.”

“Are you cold? Hot? We can get our food to go if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine, Liz.”

A comfortable silence settled between us. Eager to have a conversation that didn’t revolve around treason or betrayal, I spoke up. “So, tell me about your job.”

“Well, I only work part time as a paid intern at a law firm. I’m in college now. Most of my classes are at night or online, so that gives me plenty of time to get work done. Even though I’m not in law school, it’ll look impressive on my application.”

“Ah, so that’s why you come in at all hours of the night and hunch over your computer every hour you have free.”

“You wouldn’t know that if you slept like a normal person, now would you?” She said jokingly, with an obvious undertone of concern for my severely damaged sleep cycle.

“Hey, I haven’t gotten eight hours of sleep since the seventh grade. It’s practically ingrained in my bodily functions by now.”

“Just because it’s routine doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Drug addiction is a routine, and people die from that every single day.”

“Are you implying that my lack of sleep is comparable to the danger of drug addictions.”

“I’m not implying it, Nat. I’m stating it directly.”

This elicited an obnoxious laugh from me, one that surprised the surrounding patrons of the café and Elizabeth.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh like that. A real laugh, I mean.”

“Well maybe you’ve never said anything funny.”

“Take that back!”

“I would rather die.”

To any eavesdroppers tuning in to our conversation, it might seem that we were both embroiled in that reality television show level drama, where two mortal enemies pretend to be nice to each other and then engage in a near brawl that consists of flying mimosas and profanity filled rants. To us though, it was nothing but friendly banter. Nobody else (except maybe Elina) would understand our deadpan senses of humor, but our constant sarcasm is part of what makes us so platonically compatible, our jokes and tendency to play off one another’s comments are the reactants in the equation that produces a product- the product being our friendship.

As our conversation ended, the waiter appeared with our meals. Expecting some exclusive German cuisine, I was shocked, to say the least, when I was presented with a chicken caesar salad. Elizabeth had some sort of weird fusion food on her plate. Instead of complaining about her choice, I thanked her. She understood the baby steps I would have to take to get back to “normal” (if there even is such a thing), including sticking to what I know, down to even my food choices.

As we ate our food, I felt, for the first time in four years, that I was just an average woman with average friends eating average food at an average café and God, did it feel good.  
Even though Elizabeth was too preoccupied with her job to eat with me, I wasn’t upset. I had time to think, to soak up the sunshine, but most importantly, to eat good food. I fell into a healthier routine of going to the café and trying foreign dishes and pastries. Even though the inside of the café is constantly full, and the tables by the outdoor fans are always taken, I didn’t mind. I was left alone to heal, with nobody bothering me, and no dark memories infecting my brain.


	5. Begged, Borrowed, and Cried

Peacefulness and fugitives are normally never a good mix, but there I was, happy as can be. I got a job at the café I frequent, and my sleep schedule is becoming slightly healthier. Of course, there are times where I swore I caught a glimpse of an agent out of the corner of my eye, and I still carried my pistol with me, but other than my slight anxieties, life had been improving exponentially. But of course, the second things started going right in my life, everything had to come crashing down. 

It all started while I was on my lunch break, when I received a text from Elizabeth, who said she was feeling sick and had decided to take the afternoon off. I was immediately concerned, because she would have to be knocking on death’s door to take a break from her internship and education. Instead of simply wishing her well and finishing my lunch, something in my gut told me that something wasn’t right, and that I had to go home and check on my friend. After asking my boss for a half hour extension of my lunch hour, I set off for our shared apartment, walking with a purpose and not minding the plethora of people I bumped into.

As soon as I arrived at the door of the apartment, warning bells and red alerts started sounding in my head. The front door had been clearly kicked open and was dangling by its hinges. For just a split second, I reflected on what what Elina said, about how it’s not a sin to be selfish when your life is on the line. I shook that thought out of my head almost immediately after it formed. Reaching into my bag, I grabbed my gun, took a deep breath, and crept into the hallway that separated Elizabeth and I’s rooms and led to the living room and kitchen. Silently, I opened my door and checked everywhere. My closet, under my bed, in and under my nightstand, searching for any wires or bugs that could have been placed. Not bothering to close my door out of fear that the noise would alert any possible intruders, I began to move into Elizabeth’s room. 

When I opened her door, I was met with a completely still Elizabeth that would put a statue to shame. Knowing her gift of light sleeping, and that even the deepest of sleepers would wake up at the sound of their front door being kicked, I felt compelled to look closer. Despite my goal of trying to be as stealthy and silent as possible, I let out an audible gasp at what I saw. Elizabeth’s eyes were glassy and wide open in terror. There were bruises around her throat, and most horrifyingly, a gunshot wound right in the middle of her forehead. A sob found its way from my throat and out of my mouth at the death of one of my best friends, the woman who taught me everything know, and answered all of the annoying questions I had when I was a bright eyed initiate, the woman who took me in even when I was on the run from the law, that made my life worth living again… was now dead. All because of me. 

Throwing self-preservation out the window, I strode into the living room, prepared to fill the agent who killed an innocent woman because of my mistakes full of so many lead bullets that they’d be five pounds heavier by the time I was done with them. As I made my way down the hallway, however, I smelled something strangely familiar that I couldn’t quite name. Looking down, I say the hardwood floors and carpeted living room were covered in liquid. That’s when the cause of the headache inducing smell was. The liquid that covered the entire apartment floor was gasoline. Just as I came to this realization, I stepped back to the patio of the apartment, and ran as fast as I could across the street, warning everyone that there was an intruder in my house, and they were ready to burn it to the ground. Sure enough, the hallway was soon engulfed in flames, flames that began to devour my room, and subsequently, everything I owned. But in that moment, I didn’t care about my room, I only cared about Elizabeth. She wouldn’t even get a proper burial. No headstone for me to place flowers in front of. There was nothing left for me here. No disguises, no fake IDs, no forged birth certificates, but most importantly, no real remains of my best friend.

The sound of glass shattering interrupted my silent mourning. As I snapped my head to the side, I spotted a man jumping out of the living room window.

“STOP!” I proclaimed, breaking out into a sprint.

The man was obviously panicked and unfamiliar with the area, as he turned corners that led to desolate streets and dead ends. I chased after him, adrenaline pumping and feet pounding on the pavement. I pushed the burning in my legs and my labored breathing to the side, because there was nothing that I was going to let get in the way of justice for Elizabeth. The man made a sharp turn down a dark, dingy alleyway, whose end was a solid brick wall. The man swiveled around, desperate to find an escape.

“Who are you? Who sent you? Why did you come for my house and my friend?” I questioned. All these questions were completely rhetorical. I didn’t care who this man was, I knew that he worked for the organization, and I knew that he came for my home and only friend on the outside world because I decided to poke the sleeping bear with my own reckless decisions.

“I… I don’t have to answer to… to you!” The agent stammered. He was trapped in a corner, but I knew that cornered animals were the most dangerous. I lowered my pistol, which caused an obvious wave of relief to wash over his face.

“You’re right, agent. You don’t have to answer to me,” I said in a soft tone. “But do you know who you do have to answer to?”

The man’s face turned white.

“I’ll answer that question for you. You’re going to have to answer to God. I’ll see you in Hell.” Before the man could open his mouth to scream, I shot five bullets into his chest. I walked to him, seemingly in slow motion. Just to be sure he was dead, I fired three shots into his head. My adrenaline completely run out, I turned to the brick wall and slid down to sit on the ground. It was there, on that dirty concrete, that I cried for hours and hours, before I got up and began my escape to another foreign country: Romania.


	6. Malt Liquor on Your Breath

I’ve never been one for drinking. In a sea of drunk toddlers in high school, I was always the designated driver, equipped with my own closely guarded water bottle. I didn’t go to college, so the torture of frat parties was never even an option. The closest thing I’ve had to alcohol was a glass of wine on my twenty first birthday, and even that would make me sleep like a baby all throughout the night. Long story short: alcohol has never been my forte. If I drank alcohol while being one of America’s most wanted criminals and on the run from every major American security organization, I’d practically be signing my death warrant. It’d be especially dangerous to get drunk now that I had my previous, all-seeing occupation breathing down my neck. So yeah, I would have to have a death wish to drink. At this point, though, I frankly didn’t care. I had no friends to talk to, and no family to support me. After Elizabeth’s gruesome death, I decided to settle down in Romania, so at least when I inevitably got taken out by a sniper, arsonist, or agent, I’d be alone and nobody else would get hurt.

I got a job working at a small diner as a waitress. Most people speak English as a second language, but the other waitresses taught me what the menu and ingredient items were and how to pronounce them. Most of the people who work here have been here for a long time. A few decades, they tell me. I figured that working here until I was assassinated wouldn’t be such a bad thing. After my shift at the diner is over, I immediately head right to the bar. The place is five blocks away, but the temporary relief that a few shots gave me was worth the slightly tiring walk. Every day, I go to work, and every night I head down to the seedy looking bar that obviously has some history. Every time anyone walks through the door, a bell rings, and the owner of the bar, Andrei, greets them.

“Salut,” he says in a loud tone, just in case the entire city block couldn’t hear him.

Andrei had a constantly cheerful demeanor that never ceased to make me smile, even after a long day getting yelled at by customers that demanded refunds for food they had already finished. 

“Ce mai faci?” I asked. We fell into a little comfortable routine quickly. He would say hello, I would ask him how his day was, he’d always say good, and then he’d follow up his statement with the same question. We both always said that our days were good, even though mine were mostly never even bearable without alcohol. 

“Bine, mulțumesc. Și dumneavoastră?” 

“Bun”  
“I see your Romanian is getting much better!” He complimented. “You will have the language down soon, I’m sure of it.”

“Thank you, Andrei.” I sat down at my usual stool and asked him if he would get me a beer.

“No problem. I see you’re switching it up?” He phrased his statement as a question, encouraging me to explain my sudden shift in drink choices. 

“Yeah, I’ve been getting the worst hangovers, and it’s starting to affect how well I do at work. So, I’ve decided to get something with a little less alcohol in it.”

“Yes, hangovers can be very bad. It’s good that you’re dedicated to your job enough to stop drinking vodka. This is a day I never thought I’d see,” he says jokingly, wiping an imaginary tear from his face.

“Okay, now you’re just being dramatic,” I said as I laughed along with him.

Just as Andrei placed an ice-cold beer in front of me, the entrance bell rung. A mysterious looking man walked into the bar. He had his head lowered, and a baseball cap prevented me from getting a good look at his face, but I could make out the edges of sunglasses. Sunglasses and a baseball cap indoors… either he’s an agent with a shitty disguise, or his parents never taught him any manners.

Intrigued, I leaned in over the bar and gestured for Andrei to come over to me.

“Who is that guy that just walked in, with the sunglasses?” I questioned in a hushed tone.

“That man? He’s a regular, been coming here for about six months. Doesn’t talk much, and always wears that beat up cap and dark sunglasses.”

Andrei was always eager to gossip about his customers, most likely including me, but I had much bigger problems to deal with than a middle-aged Romanian barkeep talking about my alcoholism and embarrassingly low tolerance for alcohol. One of those problems recently tacked onto the never-ending list of issues I needed to deal with was this new shady character.

I hadn’t even noticed I was staring until Andrei let out a light laugh.

“See something you like?” He said, halfway joking.

“He looks alright. He’d probably look better if he took those ridiculous sunglasses off.” I wasn’t technically lying, I did find him attractive, but I thought he looked a lot better than  
just ‘alright’.

“He’s American, like you. From Brooklyn. Does that place mean anything to you?”

“Yeah… it’s where I grew up.”

I looked out of the corner of my eye at the man for a few more minutes, when suddenly, Andrei’s loud voice snapped me out of my daze.  
“Hey, you! In the sunglasses! There’s someone I want you to meet!” The man looked up and my eyes snapped back to the beer in front of me. I focused on everything but Andrei and the mystery man. The ingredients of the beer became the most interesting thing in the room. The man had decided to come over, and when I heard the stool screech, I decided I had to look at him. If I kept studying my beer, I knew Andrei would snatch it up. The man was wearing a cologne that I think I had smelled in a department store once. Maybe he’s a businessman? But if he was, why would he put any effort in trying to disguise himself?

Seeing that Andrei had left, and the man and I sat across from each other in an uncomfortable silence, I decided that instead of listening to every cell in my body that was telling me to run and never come back to this bar out of sheer embarrassment, I chose to be bold and talk first.

“So, what’s your name?”

“My name?

“That’s what I asked, wasn’t it?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I winced a little at how aggressive they sounded.

“I’m Bucky. Bucky Barnes.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Mr. Barnes. I’m Natalia Hayes.”

I didn’t even bother forging an identity at this point. I was going to die soon anyways. Might as well go out with a bang.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally gonna be a spy team up but I want angst so...


End file.
